Emily Barrett

Emily Barrett

BA (Hons) Photography Alumna

During a tutorial talking about our current major project, I had a bit of a nose into one of my peers, Lawrence Hylton’s sketchbook, and was struck by the calm poetic rhetoric in it. Lawrence is quite a character on the BA course, and the quiet, well written text that appeared alongside his photographs, from his current project did not match the loud character I am used to. Therefore I wanted to share some of his current project, as well as the charming, almost diary-like text that runs alongside it in his sketchbook.

Lawrence’s project, titled ‘The Landscape that Shaped Our Country’, is a continuation from his last project, now his final major project for his degree. The work explores man's desire to shape the landscape for his wants and needs, and how, after destruction we forget about such landscapes and give them back to nature in a neglected, but somewhat post-tranquil state.

The project looks at quarries, seen as a reclamation of a man-altered landscape, that have become areas of interest to walk and wonder, which is how Lawrence himself approaches the project, through wandering, exploring and with a great respect for the landscape he documents and its history.

Below are images from The Landscape that Shaped Our Country and text written by Lawrence.

The Landscape that Shaped Our Country

Foggintor Quarry

A good start to the day exploring the long abandoned Foggintor Quarry near Princetown. Visual was relatively clear when I arrived but progressively got worse as the fog was coming in and the sun was beginning to dip behind the horizon.The fog gave a nice eerie sensation to the landscape, a feel of abandonment, though how I felt at that moment in time I wasn’t sure.

Goldiggins Quarry

I went to visit Goldiggins Quarry near Minions, the first stop was at an obvious tin openwork with a desolated engine house a few hundred metres away. The cover up is impressive and only noticeable due to the moor being rather flat at the location, then, these random gullies appear in an equal distance apart.

This is good because I want to capture how nature is reclaiming a damaged landscape, or more importantly, how oblivious we are in that nature has covered up our past.

Finally reaching the quarry, now cold from the wind chill, I set about the task of finding somewhere sheltered to warm up! One of the great things about this quarry compared to the others was that it had a small patch of dry land one can stand on, in between two lakes, allowing two completely different visions of the quarry, and giving me the opportunity to focus on each side very differently.